Olympics Opening Song Was Lip-Synced by Girl

Cute girl, but she couldn't sing

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In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Lin Miaoke, a nine-year-old Chinese girl who performed at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on the day before, returns to the Xizhongjie Primary School of Dongcheng District in Beijing on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2008. A 7-year-old Chinese girl's face was "not suitable" for the Olympics opening ceremony, so Lin lip-synched "Ode to the Motherland", the latest example of the lengths Beijing took for a perfect start to the Summer Games. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Zhou Liang)

Nine year old Lin Miaoke was cute as a button as she sang "Ode to the Motherland" during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, except that she wasn't actually singing.

The voice viewers heard was that of seven year old Yang Peiyi, who was judged to have better chops, but was less adorable than Miaoke, reports The New York Times. The general music designer of the ceremony explained that it was in China's national interest to pull the vocal switch. “The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feeling and expression.” The ruse was revealed during an interview Sunday.

Even Miaoke's father was fooled by his daughter's performance. Although he watched the ceremony on television and thought he detected a difference in Lin's voice, he attributed the anomaly to the acoustics of the stadium.

In addition to the lip syncing, it was recently revealed that a 55-second portion of a fireworks display during the opening was actually computer generated and did not actually occur.